Unleaven the Lump

Last week when we started 1 Corinthians, I talked about how the church in Corinth was the poster child for dysfunctional churches. If you missed it, I’ll say it again, the church in Corinth is the poster child for dysfunctional churches. In the passage for today, Paul comes face to face with a situation that seemed so ridiculous yet was a reality. Paul had to deal with the aftermath of a man sleeping with his father’s wife.

Read 1 Corinthians 5

Alright, its pretty clear that Paul is shocked at the behavior coming from this church. But I think what shocks him isn’t what might shock us from this passage. We read it and think, “A man sleeping with his step-mother? How can this be???” But Paul isn’t so shocked by the sin itself but rather by the church’s response to blatant sin. There was no desire whatsoever to confront the individual. Rather, it seemed that the church had accepted it and was even boasting about it. How a church could be boasting about sin I’m not sure. Maybe they thought it meant they would receive more grace. In any case, Paul’s reaction is clear. He is adamant that this behavior could not be tolerated in the church. The clear course of action was to remove the immoral brother from the church. But why?

Paul then begins an interesting analogy. I like when the church is called a house or a kingdom or even Christ’s body. But Paul here calls it a lump. A lump? A lump of dough. And sin when it is allowed to fester and take root is like yeast that unleavens the whole lump of dough, causing it to be no good. Paul is saying you aren’t an old lump of dough. You are a new lump with no yeast. A people set apart for God that has no part in wickedness. See the call to holiness and righteousness was not just for the individual but was a call for the entire church corporately.
Now before we go and decide, we have to remove ourselves from any interaction from the world because sin is in the world, I want you to Reread 1 Cor 5:9-13. Paul never said to remove ourselves from the world. In fact, he acknowledges that that would require leaving the world. What Paul was saying was that within Christian community among those who profess to be a part of the body of Christ, we needed to remove from our midst unrepentant sin. Paul was not being harsh with the believer here. This was not the first time Paul had written to address the situation as he mentioned previous letters. This man after being told the necessity for holiness continued to live in sin, and the church tolerated it. Paul is saying within the community of believers we ARE to judge one another’s actions and hold them accountable.

What Paul calls the church to do seems so contrary what many in the church believe today. That an individual’s struggle with sin is their own, or we hear cries of “don’t judge me!” Or maybe we even see what the Corinthian church was doing, tolerating the presence of unrepentant sin among those who professed to be a part of the body. 1 Corinthians 5 however, is not a suggestion. It is the living word of God. So how might God be convicting you today? Perhaps it is to first unleaven your own lump. Then, maybe as He continues to refine you, He may be calling you to purify His bride, the church, until the day the bridegroom returns.

Monday: Pray for your relationship with God
Pray for a desire to learn more about God. Ask God to give you a thirst for his word.